Students must now show ID cards to enter school building
ID cards will be necessary for all students to go inside the school building from Feb. 13 and onwards.
February 3, 2023
Beginning Monday, Feb. 13, all RM students will be required to wear student ID cards while entering the school building. This is one of the school’s first new security measures in response to the incidents of Jan. 13 and Jan. 24.
RM’s administration will provide students with lanyards and card holders. Those who currently do not have their student IDs can request a new one through a Google Form and receive a pass to get their picture taken at the media center.
Some RM students feel that the heightened security requirements are inconvenient and unnecessary. “I don’t think it’s gonna do too much to help, just because of the sheer amount of students that we have,” senior Nick Nash said.
There are also those who are impartial. “I’m not sure if it’ll work out as planned,” freshman Darya Sakhi said. “I’ve never seen anything like it, so I don’t really have an opinion on it.”
Earlier this year, Walter Johnson High School took comparable measures in response to the shooting at Magruder High School in January 2022. Similarly to RM, students at Walter Johnson must wear ID badges in the building and the doors are kept locked to limit entry. According to Walter Johnson’s student newspaper, The Pitch, their students must also display their IDs when they return from open lunch.
During the advisory lesson in fifth period on Wednesday, Feb. 1, students were also reminded of RM’s safety expectations, including the fact that security will send persistent hallway walkers to in-school isolation, and potentially home.
Starting Thursday, Feb. 2, RM also enforced a clarified attendance policy: students who enter the building between 7:45-50 a.m. are sent to class without a pass; students who enter between 7:50 a.m. and the start of lunch or between the start of fifth period and 2:30 p.m. must sign in at the main office or attendance office. Students will then receive a pass to return to class.
The school held a virtual parent meeting on Jan. 31 to discuss these new policies. “We are going to be having [late students] sign in at a computer in the main office and if students are re-entering from a program like Edison, they will also need to be signing into the main office,” principal Alicia Deeny said during the meeting.
Currently, RM has hired one new security assistant who will be in the building starting Monday, Feb. 6. They are the first and only female security assistant to join the staff.
Other future security measures could include “alarming multiple exterior doors so that security staff can focus their attention on a smaller set of entryways in focused locations,” schoolwide “retraining,” lessons on safety and “requesting additional security staffing,” according to a community email sent out by Ms. Deeny on Jan. 26.
The Tide's View: ID policy should be enforced strictly or not at all
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